The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ( ICAI ) has further extended the validity of the Peer Review Certificate in the wake of COVID -19 spurt across the country.
This is in furtherance to the earlier Announcement dated 30.3.2020 hosted on the website. In the wake of COVID -19 spurt and the extension of nation wise lockdown as well as partial reliefs granted by various State Governments in a phased manner, members are facing hardships in getting the Peer Review Process completed.
Accordingly, the Peer Review Board has granted a further extension to Practice Units mentioned at Point no. C hereunder. These should be read in conjunction with the Announcement dated 30.3.2020 which had already covered cases at point no. A and B.
The ICAI has said that, the effective date of validity of the Peer Review Certificate has expired during the period from April 1, 2019, till March 24, 2020, or is set to expire during the period of lockdown, is extended by one (1) year from the date of validity of the last issued certificate subject to the submission of the final clean report* for the peer review period** 2014-17 and later, within 30 days after the cease of lockdown by such units wherefrom the final clean report* for the relevant peer review period was not received by the Board till 24.03.2020.
In case of Practice Units holding a valid Peer Review Certificate and peer review process thereof was initiated and ongoing,*** however, has stuck due to nation-wide lockdown declared in the wake of COVID-19 spurt, if the validity of the last issued certificate expires before the completion of Peer Review process, the validity of such Certificate is extended by one (1) year from the date of validity of the last issued certificate.
The Peer Review will be deemed to be initiated if the same has been initiated by the Board and the Practice Unit has reverted along with online submission of its duly filled in the declaration.
If the Peer Review Process needs to be initiated# and the validity of the certificate is expiring after Lockdown till September 30, 2020, the effective date of validity of Peer Review Certificate has been extended to March 31, 2021, and in these cases, the Practice units have to get their peer review completed and submit the final clean report* to the Board before March 31, 2021.
